Jewellery, boots only clue to skeleton

For almost four months, police investigating cases of women who have disappeared in suspicious circumstances have been calling Gosford police station.

In each case, they want to know if the skeletal remains of a woman found on June 1 in bush several kilometres north of the small Hawkesbury River community of Mooney Mooney are those of their missing woman.

Distinctive jewellery found with the body has ruled out Brent MacKay's wife, Kylie, 36, who went missing on July 25, 2002, after she failed to pick up their two young sons from school.

Police have also spoken to Margaret Bromfield, whose daughter, Elizabeth, 27, vanished in 1984. Two men were charged with Elizabeth's murder, but were subsequently acquitted. The pair were alleged to have disposed of her body in bush at Mooney Mooney.

Other cases include those of Rose Rain Howell, 19, who disappeared on April 11 while hitchhiking on the Pacific Highway near Coffs Harbour; Niamh Maye, 18, who went missing on the outskirts of Tumut on March 30, 2002, while on the way from Batlow to her sister's home in Sydney; Carmel Giannasca, 32, who disappeared from Gladesville on January 14, 2002; and Maria Scott, 28, a prostitute and heroin addict who disappeared from Port Kembla in March.

All these woman have been ruled out, and now the small team of Gosford detectives investigating the remains is looking at expanding its missing persons inquiries interstate.

The case officer, Detective Sergeant Darren Deamer, said the search to identify the remains was the flip side of a missing persons investigation: having a body, but with no name to put to it.

Until that can be established, police cannot begin working on establishing how the well-dressed woman came to be in such an isolated spot.

Sergeant Deamer said there was nothing to indicate how the woman died, although the location suggests her body was hastily dumped. Fire trail access roads half a kilometre either side of the Pacific Highway near where the body was found are littered with burned-out cars and household rubbish.

Forensic tests have placed the woman's age between 30 and 55, and her body may have been at the site for between three months and more than two years.

Police believe the woman is Caucasian, with light brown hair and a slight build, and is between 160 and 170 centimetres tall.

They hope someone may recognise her clothes, especially the distinctive jewellery she was wearing - a gold bracelet, a silver ring and a gold chain with a single pearl -

- which alsosuggests robbery was not a motive for her killer or killers.

The high heels on her shin-high EasyStep boots also indicate she was not a bush walker. The boots were made in 2001, and police have asked for a list of distribution outlets. The woman was also wearing a light colored top and green pants.

"We are conducting inquiries of missing women in NSW and interstate," Sergeant Deamer said. "We are also trying to identify her through dental records and DNA."

Anyone with information is asked to contact Gosford police on 4323 5599 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.